Last Flight to Stalingrad by Graham Hurley
The Innocent by Ian McEwan
A novel of family dynamics set in MAINE
Ten Great Thrillers set in Berlin
11th August 2024
Ten great thrillers set in Berlin. Berlin, with its complex history and vibrant present, is a fertile ground for thrilling narratives. The city’s shadowy underbelly, a legacy of the Nazi past and Cold War divisions, provides a perfect backdrop for suspenseful tales. From the gritty, neon-lit streets of the former East to the sleek, modern West, authors find endless inspiration.
Thrillers set in Berlin often explore themes of identity, espionage, and the dark side of progress. The city creates a sense of unease that permeates the genre. Whether it’s a shadowy conspiracy, a high-stakes chase, or a psychological battle, Berlin’s unique atmosphere adds depth and complexity to these stories.
Many great thrillers are set in the city. Here are ten of our absolute favourites.
Angel Avenger by Tim Wickenden
September 1960. In the Spandauer forest Detectives Max Becker and Bastian Döhl, from the Berlin Kriminalpolizei, find a naked, tortured man tied to a tree.
A cryptic message hangs from his neck.
When another body appears, Max is sure it won’t be the last.
The press dub the killer, Der Waldscharfrichter (The Forest Executioner) and graphic tattoos on the bodies suggest that the victims are Russians with a criminal past.
As more bodies and messages appear, they lead Max and his team to a horrific past event, wounds that run deep in the Berlin psyche, plunging Max into a conflict between his sense of duty and justice.
Stealing the Future by Max Hertzberg
A counter-factual spy thriller set in East Berlin in the early-1990s. The GDR still exists, but is on the edge of economic breakdown, partly due to a coal producing region is in the process of seceding from the GDR. Against this backdrop a prominent politician is find crushed to death, and the investigator has to work out who’s involved: is it the Russians, the West Germans, British Intelligence or even the remains of the disbanded Stasi?
The research and engaging writing make this book believable – an intelligent page turner!
Includes a tour of East Berlin – perfect reading for a trip!
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
From the master of spy thrillers, John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a gripping story of love and betrayal at the height of the Cold War. This Penguin Modern Classics edition includes an afterword by the author and an introduction by William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart.
Alex Leamas is tired. It’s the 1960s, he’s been out in the cold for years, spying in the shadow of the Berlin Wall for his British masters. He has seen too many good agents murdered for their troubles. Now Control wants to bring him in at last – but only after one final assignment. He must travel deep into the heart of Communist Germany and betray his country, a job that he will do with his usual cynical professionalism. But when George Smiley tries to help a young woman Leamas has befriended, Leamas’s mission may prove to be the worst thing he could ever have done. In le Carré’s breakthrough work of 1963, the spy story is reborn as a gritty and terrible tale of men who are caught up in politics beyond their imagining.
Sleepless by Romy Hausmann
Dark secrets past and present collide in Sleepless.
A haunting novel of guilt and retribution from Romy Hausmann, the international bestselling author of Dear Child.
It’s been years since Nadja Kulka was convicted of a cruel crime.
After being released from prison, she’s wanted nothing more than to live a normal life: nice flat, steady job, even a few friends.
But when one of those friends, Laura von Hoven–free-spirited beauty and wife of Nadja’s boss–kills her lover and begs Nadja for her help, Nadja can’t seem to refuse.
The two women make for a remote house in the woods, the perfect place to bury a body.
But their plan quickly falls apart and Nadja finds herself outplayed, a pawn in a bizarre game in which she is both the perfect victim and the perfect murderer…
Fatherland by Robert Harris
Fatherland is set in an alternative world where Hitler has won the Second World War. It is April 1964 and one week before Hitler’s 75th birthday. Xavier March, a detective of the Kriminalpolizei, is called out to investigate the discovery of a dead body in a lake near Berlin’s most prestigious suburb. As March discovers the identity of the body, he uncovers signs of a conspiracy that could go to the very top of the German Reich. And, with the Gestapo just one step behind, March, together with an American journalist, is caught up in a race to discover and reveal the truth – a truth that has already killed, a truth that could topple governments, a truth that will change history.
Last Flight to Stalingrad by Graham Hurley
For Werner Nehmann, a journalist at the Ministry of Propaganda, the dizzying victory of the last four years has felt like a party without end. But the Reich’s attention has turned East, and as winter sets in, the mood is turning.
Werner’s boss, Joseph Goebbels, can sense it. His words have propelled Germany towards its greater destiny and he won’t – he can’t – let morale falter now. But the Minister of Propaganda is uneasy and in his discomfort has pulled Werner into his close confidence.
And here, amid the power struggle between the Nazi Chieftains, Werner will make his mistake and begin his descent into the hell of Stalingrad…
Metropolis by Philip Kerr
Berlin, 1928, the dying days of the Weimar Republic shortly before Hitler and the Nazis came to power. It was a period of decadence and excess as Berliners – after the terrible slaughter of WWI and the hardships that followed – are enjoying their own version of Babylon. Bernie is a young detective working in Vice when he gets a summons from Bernard Weiss, Chief of Berlin’s Criminal Police. He invites Bernie to join KIA – Criminal Inspection A – the supervisory body for all homicide investigation in Kripo. Bernie’s first task is to investigate the Silesian Station killings – four prostitutes murdered in as many weeks. All of them have been hit over the head with a hammer and then scalped with a sharp knife.
Bernie hardly has time to acquaint himself with the case files before another prostitute is murdered. Until now, no one has shown much interest in these victims – there are plenty in Berlin who’d like the streets washed clean of such degenerates. But this time the girl’s father runs Berlin’s foremost criminal ring, and he’s prepared to go to extreme lengths to find his daughter’s killer.
Then a second series of murders begins – of crippled wartime veterans who beg in the city’s streets. It seems that someone is determined to clean up Berlin of anyone less than perfect. The voice of Nazism is becoming a roar that threatens to drown out all others. But not Bernie Gunther’s …
The Innocent by Ian McEwan
The setting is Berlin. Into this divided city, wrenched between East and West, between past and present: comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team.Though only a pawn in an international plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life – and to lose his unwanted innocence. The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German woman. It is a promise that turns to horror in the course of one terrible evening – a night when Leonard Marnham learns just how much of his innocence he’s willing to shed.
The Package by Sebastian Fitzek
Emma’s the one that got away.
The only survivor of a killer known in the tabloids as ‘the hairdresser’ – because of the trophies he takes from his victims.
Or she thinks she was.
The police aren’t convinced. Nor is her husband. She never even saw her tormentor properly, but now she recognises him in every man.
Questioning her sanity, she gives up her job as a doctor in the local hospital and retreats from the world. It is better to stay at home. Quiet. Anonymous. Safe. No one can hurt her here.
And all she did was take a parcel for a neighbour.
She has no idea what she’s let into her home.
Dead of Night by Simon Scarrow
BERLIN. JANUARY 1941. Evil cannot bring about good . . .
After Germany’s invasion of Poland, the world is holding its breath and hoping for peace. At home, the Nazi Party’s hold on power is absolute.
One freezing night, an SS doctor and his wife return from an evening mingling with their fellow Nazis at the concert hall. By the time the sun rises, the doctor will be lying lifeless in a pool of blood.
Was it murder or suicide? Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is told that under no circumstances should he investigate. The doctor’s widow, however, is convinced her husband was the target of a hit. But why would anyone murder an apparently obscure doctor? Compelled to dig deeper, Schenke learns of the mysterious death of a child. The cases seem unconnected, but soon chilling links begin to emerge that point to a terrifying secret.
Even in times of war, under a ruthless regime, there are places in hell no man should ever enter. And Schenke fears he may not return alive . . .
Enjoy your thrillers set in Berlin!
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I loved Phillip Kerr’s books – they remind me of the German series Babylon Berlin.